Billy Hybels, founding and senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, said, "The Church is the hope of the world."
The Church is the hope of the world because the message of hope has been entrusted to the Church. As Jesus prepared His disciples for His return to the Father in heaven, He gave them this sacred trust of displaying and declaring the good news.
Only the gospel has the awesome power to radically, fully, and eternally change lives. The gospel alone provides forgiveness for disobedience, mercy for the rebel, and grace for the undeserving. And only the Church has been given the great task and inexpressible joy of displaying and declaring to the nations this gospel of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection.
God's plan is always best and perfect. He never makes a Plan B. Plan A has always been that His followers, ever-faithful, would make disciples of all nations, advancing His kingdom into all the world and increasing His kingdom by increasing the number of worshipping followers of Jesus.
If the Church, you and me as the followers of Jesus Christ, are the hope of the world because of the good news we have to give, then every day the Church is either the world's hope or the world's doom.
We will be the hope of the world because we are faithful to carry the light of the gospel into all dark places.
We will be the doom of the world because we find it more convenient to stay than to go and choose to keep the hope we've received to ourselves rather than share with a world in need.
Are you living to display and declare the good news of Christ's kingdom as a hope-giver to the world?
The Church is the hope of the world because the message of hope has been entrusted to the Church. As Jesus prepared His disciples for His return to the Father in heaven, He gave them this sacred trust of displaying and declaring the good news.
Only the gospel has the awesome power to radically, fully, and eternally change lives. The gospel alone provides forgiveness for disobedience, mercy for the rebel, and grace for the undeserving. And only the Church has been given the great task and inexpressible joy of displaying and declaring to the nations this gospel of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection.
God's plan is always best and perfect. He never makes a Plan B. Plan A has always been that His followers, ever-faithful, would make disciples of all nations, advancing His kingdom into all the world and increasing His kingdom by increasing the number of worshipping followers of Jesus.
If the Church, you and me as the followers of Jesus Christ, are the hope of the world because of the good news we have to give, then every day the Church is either the world's hope or the world's doom.
We will be the hope of the world because we are faithful to carry the light of the gospel into all dark places.
We will be the doom of the world because we find it more convenient to stay than to go and choose to keep the hope we've received to ourselves rather than share with a world in need.
Are you living to display and declare the good news of Christ's kingdom as a hope-giver to the world?
No comments:
Post a Comment